Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.
The worried mother of a U.S. soldier in Russian custody said Wednesday that her son “was lured” there by a Russian woman he had been seeing in South Korea for over a year and that he’s being held on trumped-up charges of stealing roughly $100 from her. Melody Jones said she thinks her son, Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, was set up by his girlfriend, whom she identified as Aleksandra Vashchuk. “I think she convinced him to come there,” Jones said in a video interview from her home in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Black didn’t have Defense Department clearance to visit Russia, nor is there any indication that he planned to stay there, Army spokesperson Cynthia O. Smith said earlier Tuesday. “Instead of returning to the continental United States, Black flew from Incheon, Republic of Korea through China to Vladivostok, Russia, for personal reasons,” Smith said in a statement.
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